目录

The calcium ion is coordinated in a pentagonal bipyramidal configuration. The six residues involved in the binding are in positions 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 12; these residues are denoted by X, Y, Z, -Y, -X and -Z. The invariant Glu or Asp at position 12 provides two oxygens for liganding Ca (bidentate ligand).

The calcium ion is bound by both protein backbone atoms and by amino acid side chains, specifically those of the acidic amino acid residues aspartate and glutamate. These residues are negatively charged and will make a charge-interaction with the positively charged calcium ion. The EF hand motif was among the first structural motifs whose sequence requirements were analyzed in detail. Five of the loop residues bind calcium and thus have a strong preference for oxygen-containing side chains, especially aspartate and glutamate. The sixth residue in the loop is necessarily glycine due to the conformational requirements of the backbone. The remaining residues are typically hydrophobic and form a hydrophobic core that binds and stabilizes the two helices.

Upon binding to Ca2+, this motif may undergo conformational changes that enable Ca2+-regulated functions as seen in Ca2+ effectors such as calmodulin (CaM) and troponin C (TnC) and Ca2+ buffers such as calreticulin and calbindin D9k. While the majority of the known EF-hand Calcium-binding proteins (CaBPs) contain paired EF-hand motifs, CaBP’s with single EF hands have also been discovered in both bacteria and eukaryotes. In addition, “EF-hand-like motifs” have been found in a number of bacteria. Although the coordination properties remain similar with the canonical 29-residue helix-loop-helix EF-hand motif, the EF-hand-like motifs differ from EF-hands in that they contain deviations in the secondary structure of the flanking sequences and/or variation in the length of the Ca2+-coordinating loop.

Pattern (motif signature) search is one of the most straightforward ways to predict continuous EF-hand Ca2+-binding sites in proteins. Based on the sequence alignment results of canonical EF-hand motifs, especially the conserved side chains directly involved in Ca2+ binding, a pattern Template:PROSITE has been generated to predict canonical EF-hand sites. A prediction servers may be found in the external links section.

EF-hand-like proteins with diversified flanking structural elements around the Ca2+-binding loop have been reported in bacteria and viruses. These prokaryotic EF-hand-like proteins are widely implicated in Ca2+ signaling and homeostasis in bacteria. They contain flexible lengths of Ca2+-binding loops that differ from the EF-hand motifs. However, their coordination properties resemble classical EF-hand motifs.

For example, the semi-continuous Ca2+-binding site in D-galactose-binding protein (GBP) contains a nine-residue loop. The Ca2+ ion is coordinated by seven protein oxygen atoms, five of which are from the loop mimicking the canonical EF-loop whereas the other two are from the carboxylate group of a distant Glu.

Another example is a novel domain named Excalibur (extracellular Ca2+-binding region) isolated from Bacillus subtilis. This domain has a conserved 10-residue Ca2+-binding loop strikingly similar to the canonical 12-residue EF-hand loop.

Among all the structures reported to date, the majority of EF-hand motifs are paired either between two canonical or one pseudo and one canonical motifs. For proteins with odd numbers of EF-hands, such as the penta-EF-hand calpain, EF-hand motifs were coupled through homo- or hetero-dimerization. The recently-identified EF-hand containing ER Ca2+ sensor protein, stromal interaction molecule 1 and 2 (STIM1, STIM2), has been shown to contain a Ca2+-binding canonical EF-hand motif that pairs with an immediate, downstream atypical "hidden" non-Ca2+-binding EF-hand. Single EF-hand motifs can serve as protein-docking modules: for example, the single EF hand in the NKD1 and NKD2 proteins binds the Dishevelled (DVL1, DVL2, DVL3) proteins.

Functionally, the EF-hands can be divided into two classes: 1) signaling proteins and 2) buffering/transport proteins. The first group is the largest and includes the most well-known members of the family such as calmodulin, troponin C and S100B. These proteins typically undergo a calcium-dependent conformational change which opens a target binding site. The latter group is represented by calbindin D9k and do not undergo calcium dependent conformational changes.